Did you draw your mother’s ire when as a kid you left (or if you still are a kid, leave) the door open when you came in from outside? Or let the refrigerator hang open? Or had an array of dresser draws intrude into your room, socks spilling onto the floor? Well, I didn’t. Not back then. Oh, I wasn’t perfect either. I probably had a door stay open to the elements on an urgent run from outdoor playing when all the trees were taken. (What can I say? The rest of the neighborhood kids weren’t perfect either.) But now I’ve turned into a man with seemingly not enough strength to get a cupboard door closed all the way.

If you were to look into my kitchen after I cooked up a good healthy breakfast you would find the refrigerator closed but not quite completely, the silverware drawer open, the cabinet where the oatmeal resides with its lid half-cocked not shut quite all the way, and the dishwasher where the used plates and tableware have been carefully placed quite uncarefully left ajar. Certainly the cabinets where the plates and glasses are stored would be similarly left agape except that those items are stored in racks on the counter. There are even times when the under-sink cabinet chemicals remain unshielded when I take the time to wipe down the counter after enjoying my healthy if a bit harried morning meal.

This carelessness isn’t restricted to the kitchen. In the bathroom drawers and doors are more likely to be open than closed upon entering. (I am good about lowering the toilet seat. Years of living in predominantly female households will do that.) In the bedroom the dresser drawers are almost always opened just a crack. Somehow even the roll top on the desk that now qualifies as my longest lasting relationship never quite makes it all the way to the writing surface, even with gravity helping along my now apparently feeble shutting action. The front door manages to get closed but on a nice day with the patio in use that door stands as great a chance of being as open during the night as it was during the day since I’ll often go to bed and simply forget there is a door there. (Note to potential local burglars, there’s nothing behind that unlatched entrance worth taking except perhaps the aforementioned rolltop desk which is much too heavy for one person to handle. Especially if that one person has a strong desire to maintain a certain level of stealth. And baby making ability.)

This failure to get doors, drawers, and other front pieces into their fully secure positions can’t be age related, can it? Certainly it’s not because I forget to secure the offending openings, patio access notwithstanding. I’d not think it’s a strength issue since I seem to do well enough with car doors which are certainly heavier than veneered particle board cabinet doors. I’d say perhaps it’s a laziness thing but does it really take any more effort to push a drawer that last quarter inch than not? Could it be that I’ve developed this propensity to leaving things standing open sometime after adolescence and just had a sufficiently active adulthood that I didn’t notice I was leaving doors and drawers open until recently now that I have more time to hang around the not closed openings? That seems doubtful in that you would imagine at some time I would walk into a hanging drawer front or notice the milk had soured from a refrigerator left open for an entire week’s worth of work days. No, age doesn’t seem to be a factor here other than one of coincidence.

I think the culprits are the house fairies that I had been hoping would have shown up during those years of weeks’ worth of work days to do things like clean the counters and match the socks tossed haphazardly into the dresser. They finally got around to me on their list of houses to work on and when they got here found that everything they had been dispatched to do is now being dealt with. Since house fairies are notoriously reticent to leave a place once they have been assigned, they are obviously looking for something to do, cook, eat, write, or wash, and they leave the room within which they are so searching somewhat hastily upon my entrance. The doors and drawers are left open just a smidge because, let’s be blunt about it, fairies don’t take up that much space and can get in and out of places through just a crack. That clearly explains the cabinets and dressers and even the desk doors and drawers that seem to never make it completely closed.

There. I feel better about it already. All except for that patio door business. I think I might have to take the blame for that one.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?